Try not to be afraid
To burn the old poetry
If you require its light
If summer fades too quickly
To winter without a pause
Some years will be like that
But this year
Autumn lingered
Setting all the trees ablaze
Insisting I finally stop
Be in the season
And when I lost something
I felt it
As though my whole body
Remembered how often
It had smothered its own ache
Just to survive
To take another fearful step
This year walking with slow
Intention through it all
All the decomposing leaves
Not even to gather seeds
For another season
But to be in this one
Reaching my hands deep
Into almost frozen dregs
All the moments I tried to bury
And excavate them up
In great heaping piles
See if I can use the white ash
That remains
To paint a different path
Speak the stories aloud
Just once without shame
Into this thin veil
Between seasons
With the magic
Of those old words
Build an altar
And watch them burn
Like the trees
Come into full season
